Asymmetry In Wartime

Recapped by Jacob Clifton · Aired 07-24-2011 · S04E05

Tommy reacts to being chained up by his gross parents not by turning into a bumblebee or rhinoceros, but by murdering both of them, so I guess now he's a Skinwalker. It's kind of sad, but also there is a sweetness in that he immediately drives their dead bodies over to Sam's house for help getting rid of them. One short V-inspired hassling from Andy Bellefleur later, they've given the bodies to the crocodiles and sort of made up about things.

Arlene and Terry invite good old Lettie Mae and Rev. Daniels over to the house for a quick exorcism -- which quickly becomes unsettlingly coded and circuslike in only the way an evangelical Lettie Mae situation could ever be -- but by nighttime the devil baby or devil doll or ghost of Renee has set fire to their house.

No news on Luna or her shifter/were daughter this week, but the packmaster of Shreveport visits Alcide and acts greasy on him -- apparently Alcide and Debbie were supposed to check in, upon moving from Mississippi, and they've let that slide for a few months. It's always so embarrassing when Alcide has to associate with werewolves just because he is one.

In the wake of Marnie's latest spell on Pam's face, Tara decides to head back to New Orleans, but Naomi's poorly timed discovery of Tara's many lies might put a crimp in that one. She heads over to Sookie's for some ice cream and sympathy, but feels terribly betrayed when Eric finally wakes up and blunders into their conversation. Meanwhile, Jesus and Lafayette take the ten-minute drive to Mexico's interior after Jesus reveals a story about his evil grandfather making him drink goat's blood.

Sookie goes undercover to get a reading from Marnie, which results in Adele speaking to her from beyond the grave and telling her Marnie is bad news. Later, Witch Spy Katie visits Marnie and ends up hauling her in for questioning. Bill glamours the poor old thing on behalf of vanished Eric and Pam's face, but Marnie can't help because of course she doesn't know what's going on. She does have another vision of her ghost witch buddy, Antonia, being subjected to terrors by vampire priests during the whole Spanish thing they keep bringing up and refusing to actually discuss: Turns out, we learn, that Antonia necromanted like 200 vampires to walk out into the sun this one time.

Jason has no idea he's stepping into a mess with Hoyt and Jessica's decomposing relationship, but between the sex dreams and Jessica's own weirdness about what she did to Hoyt -- as well as the upcoming full moon -- he's to be excused for paying less attention than usual. The saddest thing here is when Hoyt and Jason compare notes about their girl troubles, and neither of them know that Hoyt's been violated even worse than Jason. Anyway, he's weirded out for now but I think panther problems might be presenting themselves more urgently pretty soon.

After glamouring Portia Bellefleur to run screaming whenever she sees him. Bill brings his Sheriffs in for a meeting. The group includes a surviving vampire priest -- Olivier from Six Feet Under, grossly -- and also the awkward moment when still melting-down Pam accidentally reveals Eric's secret whereabouts.

Which is bad news, because Sookie's finally kissing Eric. After a nightmare in which Godric urges him to drink Sookie's blood, and her tenderly talking him down, Sookie's never quite felt so close to him. He's horrified by the things people say he's done, and pretty much completely in love with her; she's falling pretty fast herself, despite Adele's message that his wondrous new personality is only temporary.

SHAPESHIFTER TRAILER PARK

Joe Lee: "Just kidding, I didn't leave your gross mom!"
Tommy: "Stop choking me! If only I had magic powers. If only you owned pants!"
Joe Lee: "You will now be our main source of revenue because I broke your mom!"
Tommy: "Sure, after I wake up from this loss of consciousness."
Gross Mom: "Are you sure we're doing the right thing? Choking our kid out and then making him fight animals? Oh, and did I tell you he learned how to read?"

Tommy: "See now how the choke becomes the choker! Who's the bitch now?"
Fighting, fighting, trailer park family domestic situation of a sort I was not raised to accommodate or acknowledge.
Both Parents: Suddenly dead.
Tommy: Contrite about killing his mom. Does not know that he is now a Skinwalker.

MARNIE'S LATEST BAD IDEA

Marnie, waking up in the dirt of a witch circle: "Hey, what happened?"
Lafayette, verbatim: "Hooker, you pissed off another vampire and then you took a goddamn nap!"
Marnie: "Okay, my bad. I got possessed again by that ghost witch lady."
Jesus: "That's marginally interesting."
Lafayette: "Not really. Vampires aren't going to give a shit about that."
Marnie: "[More of her necromantic right-to-assemble nonsense which she does honestly believe and which is the secret nasty truth about this story line: Nobody ever thought they were doing evil, not once in history or time has anybody thought they were the villain. And the worse we get, the more we cling.]"
Team Lala: (Bounces, leaving dumb Marnie to clean up all her witch stuff.)

FOR BORED GIRLS + BOYS WHO HAVE WASTED PRECIOUS SCREENTIME ON ARLENE WHEN NAKED ALCIDE IS ENUF

Arlene: "Our devil baby wrote on the wall!"
Terry: "That seems unlikely, although Occam's Razor does support your theory."
Arlene: "I wish I hadn't tried for that magical abortion, or else Jesus might help us out."
Terry: "Maybe we should get a priest, actually. Or some Holy Roller equivalent."

Generally I think complaining about the number of characters and/or plotlines on this show is tantamount to admitting you're too stupid to keep up, or too lazy to resist the meme and form your own opinion -- or, worst of all, just hypothetically bitching like people who scream SPOILERS even though they've already been spoiled and everybody has been spoiled and it wasn't even a spoiler and they're just doing it because they want to feel like hero cops of the internet -- but Arlene makes me wonder. And then shit like this happens, and it all seems okay again:

By Jacob Clifton

Arlene, hilariously hissing at the ceiling: "You hear that, Rene? God's coming for youuuuuu."

GODRIC, HOLLOW

Godric: "Hey Eric, it's me! Indisputable proof that I am imaginary and not an angel or ghost. Since I used to represent the humanity you were suppressing, now that you're nice and amnesiac I will represent the demonic vampire side of you that you're slowly beginning to know about and fear. You copy? It's basic psychology that your Shadow speaks for the parts of yourself you're denying."
Eric: "I copy. I have no idea who you are, but I am majorly conflicted so that makes sense."
Godric: "Cool. Let's get homoerotic and then eat Sookie together, symbolizing a journey toward integrating your vampiric sex/murder drive that you barely yet understand."
Eric: "What a fantastic idea!"
Sookie: Dies screaming.
Eric: Wakes screaming. It was just a dream!

Sookie: "Eric, why are you standing in my bedroom looking destroyed?"
Eric, pouting, eight feet of sex and Tyler Durden hips: "I had a bad dream!"

THREE'S COMPANY

Hoyt: "Thanks for giving my best friend the magical shit that is your blood."
Jessica: "Sure, whatever."
Hoyt: "You seem really distant ever since you hypnotized me and invalidated our entire relationship and sent yourself into a shame spiral that has yet to fully express itself."
Jessica: "I'm just gearing up."
Hoyt: "Okay, let's undress Jason and then go back to our house."
Jessica: "I'm still going to be distant and feel gross about touching you."
Hoyt: "Then I would prefer to stay here with Jason, to punish you. On some level it's possible I also know you've done something disgusting."
Jessica: "Um, that hurts my feelings but it's also a relief. Being around you feels like sandpaper on the inside of my brain because of what I did. So I'll see you tomorrow!"

COMPTON KINGDOM

The Redoubtable Portia Bellefleur: "Sit still, this is going to take a minute."
Grandpa Bill: "Miss Bellefleur, Ah assure you that nothin' you have to say will change my feelings on this matter..."
TRPB: "Fact. 42 states have repealed their anti-incest laws. Even in cases of brother and sister they have found no credible reason to ban sex between two consenting adults."
Bill: "Please do not think that you have mah consent."
TRPB: "Fact. Incest is only taboo because of the potential for genetically-morbid offspring. And vampire-human sex will not/cannot result in offspring."
Bill, so perfectly: "Portia, there are pressing matters to which Ah must attend!"
TRPB: "Fact. There are married cousins in Bon Temps with more common DNA than you and me. Factor in Hotshot, and..."
Bill: "Although Ah am the worst, Ah must refrain from incestuous union with..."
TRPB: "Fact. In 1941 a family from Shreveport..."
Bill: (Glamours her not just to leave him alone, but in fact to run screaming from the mere sight of him. )

Not sure why he does it this way, but it sure is funny to watch her hotsteppin' out of there in her heels, screaming daintily, no less redoubtable. And so ends the love story of the two smartest and most powerful people in Bon Temps, LA -- one too mired in history to accept the fact that Lorena was his mother and thus he's already done this shit, and the other too caught up in modernity to understand why even just making the argument for incest means you lose the argument about incest.

SOOKIE & THE BEAST

Eric bleeds tears out of his eyes and continually wipes them away throughout every take of this entire scene; it's adorably childlike each time, but maybe cumulatively a little OTT.

Sookie: "It's okay to dream about Godric. He was your father and your son and your brother and your other brother and your lover and your maker and a sinner and saint and a bitch and all that boring stuff."
Eric: "But I hate crying and feeling so sad! About somebody I don't even remember! And he said I was evil and I hate that too!"
Sookie: "Eric, you're not evil. You're a Machiavellian dick, but not all that evil."
Eric: "Stop laughing at me!"
Sookie: "I just think it's funny that Eric Northman is crying in my lap, is all."

Sookie: "Stop pouting. Godric was a wonderful man, and I loved him. And he loved you. And he wanted more than anything for you to find the gentleness and peace and calm that you are currently experiencing. He honestly thought that it was possible to mediate between the two halves of our nature, and died of grief that the rest of the world couldn't seem to find that peace for themselves. And, having seen in him our only hope for that peace realized, I believe in it now too. He would be proud of you."

Eric: "Can I stay here until sunrise?"
Sookie: "Of course. Just don't bite me or get weird."
Small Spoon Eric, pulling her arm around him: "I would never hurt anyone as beautiful as you. Never never never."

It's more of a prayer than a promise.

KING BILL

Rotting Pam enters, wearing a ridiculously huge black veil in an attempt to make her affliction into a goth-chic Fangtasia! costume.

Bill, cracking his first joke of all time: "Oh good. The world needs more beekeepers."
(He waits for us to finish applauding.)
Pam: "Those motherfucking witches. You fuck with my face, it's time to die."
Bill: "I told you not to bother them."
Pam: "Yeah, and I did. And then I interrupted the spell about two bars in. But they fucked with my fucking face, Bill Compton. My fucking face. It is go time. Give me permission to torture and kill that witch. Please."
Bill: "Eyes on the ball, Pam. Not only have you forgotten the Eric part of all this, which is a load off, but also I would have to execute you for that. It is a post-Russell Edg..."
Pam: "-- Ugh! Look at my fucking face!"
Bill: "I'll get the other Sheriffs together and we'll see what we can do. Have you tried putting lipstick on your rotting face?"
Pam: (Peels off a hunk of her face and slings it onto his floor in response, along with a tiny whimper. I think it's safe to say Pam has lost the plot at this point. Which is about the scariest thing you can imagine.)

TEAM LALA

Jesus: "Tara, you can come with us to see my brujo abuelo in Mexico. The one from whom I've been on the run since I was a little kid."
Lafayette: "Oh, that's right! Demon face and all that. Well wait, why are we doing this?"
Jesus: "Because he has power and I've convinced myself there's not really any such thing as black magic, despite how endlessly talking about that difference was my raison d'être last season."

Tara: "I think I'm going to head back to New Orleans. Vampires and witches have never heard of New Orleans, probably."

Lafayette: "Jesus, can you tell me a long flashback right now while we're both just standing here in my driveway?"
Jesus: "Sure. When I was nine he made me stab a goat to death and then licks its blood off the knife and takes its spirit into me."
Lafayette: "So what you're saying is that you are literally a chupacabra and also that you have a magical goat inside you?"
Jesus: "This is what I'm saying. I am full of cabron power now."
Lafayette: "Well, I'm convinced."

Tara: "Hey Naomi, what are you doing?"
Naomi: "Chilling in our house dressed like Flashdance, leaning up against stuff as usual. You?"
Tara: "I'm coming home."
Naomi, going through the mail: "That sounds awes... Who the fuck is Tara Thornton?"
Tara: "Oh, uh... I have to go."

MERLOTTE

Tommy drives up to Sam's house in a giant van, with their dead parents in the back.

Tommy: "I fucked up, Sam."
Sam: "I see that, Tommy. I see that you fucked up."

MERLOTTE'S

Sookie puts on her brightest This Is How Normal People Act smile -- always unsettling -- and approaches Holly for some hamfisted manipulation.

Sook: "Hey, Holly! How's that Wiccan coven going? I sure do think witches are neat!"
Holly: "Yeah, it's pretty spiritual and peaceful when we're not raising the dead."
Sookie: "What about when you get attacked by vampires?"
Holly: "This conversation is over. Because you fuck vampires and are the town retard, and also because why are you talking like that?"
Sookie: "Or is it?"

Holly psychically converses with herself about how fucking stupid Marnie is, how she cast the spell on Eric, and the address of where Marnie lives, including its 9-digit zip and current market price on Zillow and average gas bill.

By Jacob Clifton

MERLOTTE

Tommy drives up to Sam's house in a giant van, with their dead parents in the back.

Tommy: "I fucked up, Sam."
Sam: "I see that, Tommy. I see that you fucked up."

MERLOTTE'S

Sookie puts on her brightest This Is How Normal People Act smile -- always unsettling -- and approaches Holly for some hamfisted manipulation.

HOYT & JASON

Hoyt: "So you got gang-raped by a town full of women?"
Jason: "Technically, yes. Although really they were operating out of their own brainwashed lack of agency, so it's more like we all got raped."
Hoyt: "Well, doesn't that make you feel alienated from your own body, and betrayed?"
Jason: "Sure. But not in the same way as it would if I were raped by a man."
Hoyt: "Are you saying men can't be raped?"
Jason: "Um, no? I'm saying that rape by a woman carries different cultural and sexual connotations than rape by a man."
Hoyt: "But aren't all rapes the same? Who are you, Whoopi Goldberg?"
Jason: "Well, the kind of moral rank you're trying to pull is a bit more complex than shifting all your Rape Is Bad baggage -- as though anyone on earth would disagree with that -- onto a seriously different situation and pretending they are the same in order to appear interesting and progressive."

By Jacob Clifton

Hoyt: "I think it's terrible that you think rape is okay, if you're a woman. TV Tropes told me so!"
Jason: "It was a pretty brutal situation. I was wounded, attacked by animals, and then forced to have sex to the point of injury. I wouldn't recommend it."
Hoyt: "Then why are you splitting hairs?"
Jason: "The way I see it, you're the one splitting hairs. This is a fictional situation with no real equivalent in the outside world, and yet because I'm a man, it's interesting and novel to apply the usual rape conversation to the situation."
Hoyt: "Women rape men. All the time!"
Jason: "Less than 1% of all reported rapes are perpetrated by women. I'm sure if you think about it you'll understand why."
Hoyt: "Then why aren't you reacting like TV tells us women always do?"
Jason: "If we were talking about one of the rapes committed by men every two minutes in this country, I probably would. But that's not the story that's happening right now on this show."

Hoyt: "If you reversed the genders, it would be terrible!"
Jason: "Yeah, and if you reversed gravity they'd be fucking me on the ceiling. What does that have to do with anything?"
Hoyt: "Men and women are completely interchangeable! They approach their bodies and the many intimacies and dangers of sex with one another in completely identical and symmetrical ways!"
Jason: "If the power differential between men and women were that balanced, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all, because nobody would be raped. Tell me this: Hypothetically speaking, and God forbid, but would you rather get..."
Hoyt: "-- Neither! Which proves they are exactly the same."

Jason: "That's like saying that murder and manslaughter are the same thing because somebody ends up dead either way. Look, I would hate to accuse you of speaking from the privilege of somebody who's never been raped by a man. That would imply that I'm not overjoyed that you get to retain that ignorance -- that you get to say you can't tell the difference between getting raped by a woman and getting raped by a man -- when in fact I hope you continue to be this sheltered forever. I hope you never learn the difference. But male rape, of both men and women, is a cultural fact. We are raised in a society that both condemns and subtly condones it, and are raised -- boys and girls -- to fear and protect ourselves against the possibility. We have created entire social systems to safeguard against it, in every culture since humanity began; we've created our own systems of support and comfort for those who have lived through this trauma. All of which is trivialized when you try to equate a single imaginary man's fantastical rape by panther women with the actual rape by men -- of both men and women -- that happens every day in this country."

So with Hotshot, we've been told literally and explicitly that they are behaving like a family of cats on a remote farm: Inbreeding when it's time to breed, like farm cats, and when they do, they hold down their women by the neck and thrust enough times to ejaculate and then it's over. Which is terrible by human standards, but absolutely unremarkable in the non-human animal kingdom.

And then because they are also human, you've got a social and religious explanation for their lives that feeds back into preserving the status quo -- Ghost Momma and Ghost Daddy, the Panther Man & Woman, Shaman Luther, Nature Is Nature -- that says their burden is to live between the two worlds, squeezed horribly between them, degraded. Dying, inbred, prone to sickness and SIDS. Letting Nature down. And then along comes Jason, who's both human and demonstrated a devotion and generosity toward them that their little town has never seen, and whom with just a few bites could be one of them, and rewarded with their highest honor, an honor for which we've been told Felton's sexual failings and addictions invalidated him, like some kind of Prince Hal who's forced to stand by as this upstart outlander takes his bride and his responsibility for impregnating the women one by one, takes all his honor and then falls on him out of the sky with a spear, without even giving him the chance of an honorable death... I don't know.

Once you're mature enough to understand the difference between prescriptive and descriptive storytelling, a lot of joy and little surprises open up, I guess. But I suppose looking for reasons to get offended, that have nothing to do with the actual story, is a fun way to almost enjoy things, too. Especially if you hate them. Or just love that feeling of heroism more than you love the feeling of being told a story.

BAD MOON RISING

Holly: "Goddamn it Sookie, you took my short-order food item!"
Sookie: "Uh, no I didn't?"
Holly: "Sorry, this full moon tomorrow night is throwing off my witchy intuition."
Jason: "FULL MOON?"
Holly: "Is it throwing off your witchy intuition too?"
Sookie: "What's going on in your head? Why haven't you returned my calls? Why are you covered in panther bites?"
Jason: "I have to go! Please don't find out about my rape!"
Sookie: "...That certainly didn't seem like anything having to do with me, so I won't follow up at all."

By Jacob Clifton

BAD MOON RISING

By Jacob Clifton

ARLENE (MORE)

Reverend Daniels and Lettie Mae Thornton! They're still married, still batshit crazy, and still Holy Rollers. I'm proud of Terry for calling them up instead of whatever white supremacist Arlene thinks of as a preacher. But that doesn't mean we're going to talk much about the squeamish (-ly hilarious) scene that follows, in which Lettie Mae and the Rev sing spirituals and scour the corners and talk about the time Lettie Mae was possessed by demons and... I mean, maybe it's racist to even feel nervous about this scene, but if so, call me a racist because it made me incredibly nervous and we are done here.

GOODNIGHT MOON(GODDESS)

Sookie takes her wide-eyed Hey Y'all! act on the road, thanks to Holly's eidetic memory, and soon enough she's talked Marnie into giving her a reading.

Sookie: "You know, when I was a kid and I was home sick from school. my two favorite shows were Sabrina and Charmed!"
Marnie: "Mine was Dark Shadows because I'm that old."
Sookie: "What goes on in that kitty-litter stinking rathole behind the curtain?"
Marnie: "That is my kitchenette. And also where we do witchery and occasionally get attacked by vampires."
Sookie: "Please invite me to be in your coven! A stranger's just a friend you haven't met yet!"
Marnie: "Girl, you're blonde. Come on. Don't you know there's a war on?"

Marnie: "Okay, I see an old lady and I hear a sad cello."
Sookie: "That's my Gran!"
Adele: "Soooooookie I am talking to you through this crazy bitch's heaaaaad"
Sookie: "I'm glad you're not all bent out of shape about getting chopped up by that serial killer."
Adele: "It was okaaaaay because he also killed our caaaaaaat so now I have cooooooompany"
Sookie: "Anything else?"
Adele: "Twoooo things first of all don't be in love with Eric Nooooorthman because this shit is only temmmmmporary and second of all get out of there because this witch is trouuuuuuble"
Sookie: "Nice meeting you!"
Adele: "Your fairy granddad says hi toooooo and thanks for getting him killlllled"
Marnie: "Wait, I'm a good witch not a bad witch! This ghost is a liar! Where are you going?"
Sookie: "Hooker, when my Gran tells me to run I run. Keep the change!"

By Jacob Clifton

THE MERLOTTES OF REYNARD

Well, those Mickens Boys sure can't stay out of trouble for more than a day or two, can they? Why, Boss Hogg is on their trail and they're still miles away from the swamp where they're headed to feed their parents to the alligators (crocodiles?). Andy Bellefleur's got the mean-eyed look of a man strung out on the V, and sure as anything he just loves pressin' his bootheel down on the likes of Sammy and Tom. After a few tense seconds of reckless authority and addict paranoia, ol' Andy's got the back door of that there van open, and then before you know it Tommy Merlotte's hissin' at him in the form of the biggest crocodile (alligator?) you ever saw. Andy runs faster'n a Benny Hill sketch back to his beater, and them Mickens Boys hit the road once again.

MOONBACKSTABBER

Katya: "Marnie, it's so great to see you again in my guise of a witch spy for vampires!"
Marnie: "I thought you were gone for good! Let me tell you about this ghost witch lady that lives in my body since I committed ontological suicide like a crazy old asshole. She's going to save us from the vampires."
Katie: "Not unless she shows up in the three two one... SWAT."
Marnie, roughly taken into custody: "Curses! Not literal!"
Katie, into walkie: "Target acquired."

SOOKIE'S HOUSE OF PEOPLE CONSTANTLY LEAVING & COMING BACK OR SOMETIMES GETTING BRUTALLY MURDERED

Sookie: "You're a lesbian now? Whatever, that's cool."
Tara: "Okay, but since I have your attention can I complain about a personal issue?"
Sookie: "You have ten seconds."
Tara: "Same old Sookie."
Sookie: "No, I mean the sun's going down and I don't want to explain you and Eric to each other."
Tara: "Okay, well I've been lying to my girlfriend about everything there is you could lie about."
Sookie: "And?"
Tara: "And that's it. That's the problem. Our whole relationship is a lie."
Sookie: "Oh, just like me and Bill! Well, you should probably go fight for her. In the five seconds."
Tara: "But if it were Bill fighting for you, would you let him in?"
Sookie: "Are you kidding me? What is more fun than torturing Bill Compton? In this case, though, you have to be honest when it comes to the people you love."

By Jacob Clifton

Irony: "Did somebody call me? I'll be right up."

BILL'S AWESOME HIGH-TECH DUNGEON

Marnie: "This reminds me of this one time when that witch ghost lady was in jail, back during Spain, with a bunch of other witches. And then the priests came running in, and one of them was gross Olivier from Six Feet Under, and they were vampires! And then they said prayers in mean voices, and ate one of the other witches."

SOOKIE'S HOUSE OF LYING TO YOUR LOVED ONES

Tara: "Sookie, can I stay here with you tonight? Lafayette's house is full of the creepiest bullshit."
Sookie: "No, my friend, you cannot."
Tara: "Um, why are you being so weird?"

...Eric: "Hey, guys! What's crackin'?"

Tara: (Reacts about as well as you'd imagine. Manages to blow Old Eric's spot about just about everything -- the time she sucked the bullet, the time he fed her to the King, all the shit he pulled on Lafayette -- causing Eric to just about die of sadness before she does a hilarious ducking full-tilt run out the door.)

THE KING, THE WITCH & THE ROTTING CORPSE'S WARDROBE

Bill, over intercom: "Hey Marnie! Welcome to vampire jail. I hope you're feeling helpful!"
Pam: "...Cut her up and slice her and grind her bones and..."
Bill: "You know it's the craziest thing! My friend came to see you recently at work..."
Marnie: "-- Yeah and then he ate me unconscious and then shit got intense."
Bill: "Do you remember what happened to him, sweetie?"
Marnie: "No, it was just some spell. No big deal."
Pam: "...Fuckin' face off her and shove it in the toilet and take a baseball bat and..."

Bill: "And then recently another friend of mine visited you in the woods and I think maybe you might have accidentally rotted her face off? That ring-a-dingin' anything for you?"
Marnie: "Nope, it was some kind of weird spell or something."
Pam: "... See how you like it fuckin' bullshit why I oughtta..."
Bill: "Honey, have you ever done a spell on purpose?"

Marnie: "Not real ones! Mostly just like spells to bind the ill intent of tax collectors, bring back certain actors on my stories, that kind of thing. Spells to banish cat pee smell."
Pam: "MY FUCKIN' FACE & THEN I'M GONNA..."
Bill: "Darlin', you stay right there. I'm going to come down and see you."
Marnie: "Sure wish you wouldn't..."
Bill: "Aw, sweetheart. Be right down!"

By Jacob Clifton

Pam: "Anecdotal evidence suggests that when vampires get within a few feet of this old bitch, stuff happens. Apparently stuff beyond her mortal ken. The hell are you doing?"
Bill: "Ah am the King of Louisiana, Ah am William Compton of Bon Temps, Louisiana, and Ah make old ladies weak in the knees. Ah will be right back."

Marnie: "DON'T TOUCH ME!"
Bill: "Look into mah eyes and tell me what Ah wish to know, Marnie."
Marnie: "Cooool."
Bill: "What are yore intentions concerning witchcraft?"
Marnie: "Only to assemble peacefully and practice our religion."
Bill: "What have you done to Eric Northman, mah Sheriff?"
Marnie: "No idea."
Bill: "What about mah associate's formerly beautiful face?"
Marnie: "Still nothing. I am not lying."
Pam: "FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU"

MEXICO

Some pregnant girl hanging laundry, Abuelo Brujo looking much more handsome than in the flashbacks and even more jittery-making, and -- because it's Mexico -- chickens absolutely everywhere.

SHREVEPORT

This gross dude with a disturbing way of doing his hair appears at Alcide's house to bitch at him about not registering with the Shreveport Pack, but Alcide is a self-hating lycanthrope who can't bear the trashy presence of other werewolves, so they piss on each other's shoes and Alcide is almost too beautiful to look at and then the guy goes away again.

Prediction #1: Meet Debbie Pelt's new boyfriend! Watch Alcide cry, hopefully shirtless.
Prediction #2: Meet Luna's babydaddy! Watch Sam cry, hopefully while Tommy is doing naked hot yoga nearby.
Prediction #3: Both. Watch the whole show come back to being about one thing instead of eighty-seven things.
Prediction #4: Something about Tommy being a Skinwalker and mixing into the above. Maybe if a Skinwalker kills another Skinwalker they get the ability to turn into Natalie Portman or something. They get the power to come out of your TV and be real. And if one of those kills another one of those, they become the Highlander. He grows a big black beard and becomes a MLB relief pitcher and we get so gay married. Brian Wilson, you're my Eric Northman.

AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE TARA

Eric: "I sound really really bad when she describes me that way. Is it all true?"
Sookie: "Yeah, but don't worry about it. I get myself into more shit than that without even leaving my place of employment on any given day."
Eric: "But I love you and it makes me sad that I made you sad."
Sookie: "There's more to you than your worst self."

Sookie explains further that she had an inkling of his decency, but he says a hidden spark of decency is irrelevant, because he has shown himself to be capable of extreme cruelty, and I mean, can you not see where this is going? Eric Northman, finding out there are parts of his heart he doesn't know yet? Sookie, who honestly believes that people can change? When he becomes cruel again, it will be worse because he will have chosen it. And on some level, I think, Eric knows that now.

Eric, zooming away into the night: "There's a light in you. It's beautiful. I couldn't bear it if I snuffed it out."

Which is when Sookie calls him back, touched, and runs out onto the porch so they are almost the same height, and the music has a grand mal seizure, and they finally kiss.

If that's their theme, I like it. It's faster than the Bill song, and newer, and it sounds a little northern and it sounds a little faerie and it sounds like maybe it's going a little too fast for its own good. It's a lot to take in -- as color on the scene of them finally kissing -- but considered as the basis of a motif I presume we're going to be hearing a lot? Pretty effective.

BLACKBURN!

Bill has summoned his four remaining Sheriffs, which include Olivier from Spain Time, a lady, another dude, and a hot young fellow named Blackburn. They all laugh at Bill for being afraid of witches, and he does some alpha-male stuff to get them under control, and then Olivier tells them the whole story of 1610 Spain, and it turns out it is a kind of cool story.

Basically, when it was Antonia's turn at the stake, she used that spell -- from the first time Marnie time-travelled or remote-viewed or whatever -- to pull every vampire within twenty miles around out of their sleep and into the sunlight. Priests, nuns, Olivier's Maker, all of them. Just walked out, their bodies were not their own, they met the sun, and that's why Bill sent Eric to MoonGoddess, and that's the thing that Eric and Nan ignored.

Bill: "Vampires have often found it advantageous to maintain a hidden presence in humanity's most powerful institutions. And in the 1600's that was the Catholic Church. And today, as you all know, it's Google and Fox News."

Which is a funny line, but short-sighted and bizarre in context, since we've already seen plenty of FoS bullshit on Fox News. You can't have your metaphor both ways. I mean, one of the things that's great about this show is that it regularly does, but in this case it's actually contradicting itself, not being ambiguous. Whatever. Cute line.

Anyway, Olivier tracked down all the witnesses, glamoured and killed them, and now 400 years later all the Sheriffs are getting it and they're ready to take out the witches. (Pam's ear drops off at this time, making the ticking of the clock on this one all the louder.) But they can't kill Marnie, as Pam explains, because she gave Eric amnesia and rotted her face and...

Bill: "She fucking what now?"
Pam: "Oh, shit. Yeah, the jig is up. Eric's got witchnesia and he's staying at Sookie's and I've been lying to you on his behalf which is no surprise, but it also means that Sookie has been lying to you on behalf of Eric Northman, which..."
Bill: "...Burns and goads mah heart like the rays of the sun, yes. She lied to me and then she lied to me about lying, which is so much worse. Mah heart is breaking. Ah must go."

Bill goes zooming off to do who knows what, and it's so dumb but even in this fun frothy campy episode there's a moment where Pam stares off to the side and the camera zooms in and she whispers to herself, "I'm sorry, Eric..." as though we're about to cut to a commercial for one of Marnie's stories, and we're done.

So what have we learned? Anything you repress, it's going to come fuck you up in a resentful way when you least expect it. Nothing new there. But one of the neat things about this show is that it goes both ways: Whatever darkness we have in our consciousness, there's a compensatory unconscious brightness. That's always left out of the conversation because we're so used to being afraid of how we're going to fuck ourselves up unexpectedly. But if you think about how much negative stuff -- pain, fear, self-hatred, regret -- we carry around in our daytime selves, does it not bring you comfort to know that just under the surface there's something shining, just as bright?

The thing about Shadow -- shadow content, self-sabotage, whatever -- is that it bends the light in such a way that everything seems asymmetrical: What's under the surface, scaring you, surfacing in little moments and dreams, seems so much larger than the toys you bring out and play with all day long, even the ones that hurt. And it can make it seem like you're never going to fix all the problems, which generally knits them all into one big problem that is your life, which continues until you look at them, or they force you to look at them. But if you can remember that there's gold under there -- that no matter how many times Dark Godric shows up that's still not the truth about Godric, or the story of Eric, or you or me; that the crimes we do ourselves and survive in this world are more important than the imaginary crimes of people inside the stories that speak to us -- it gets a lot less scary to look: There is an asymmetry, for sure, but it's one angled sharply in our favor. I promise you that.

By Jacob Clifton

week: Who knows, man. It's the halfway point, which generally means everything flips over in a major way for the season, while still being about the Act Two things: Jason and Jessica (and Hoyt), Tara and Naomi (and Toni), Sookie and Eric (and Bill), Sam and Tommy (and Maxine), Arlene and Terry (and Satan), Lafayette and Jesus (and Abuelo), Alcide and Debbie (and Luna), Marnie and Bill (and Antonia), etc. If this one wasn't going to kick ass -- which it will, it's Raelle Tucker's first script of the season -- it would only mean the one afterward would be even crazier. As it is, we get Bill tossing Eric all around and Debbie causing trouble for Alcide, two good things. And many more!